


Restoration

by Leyenn



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 22:58:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Corridors, a TARDIS key, tea, and no chips.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Restoration

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Kowarth for the original Ninth Doctor Ficathon. Post-ep for _Father's Day_.

"She must have walked for hours."

The TARDIS didn't answer him. Given the length of time they'd been together, and the number of times within that length of time the TARDIS had ever answered him back (namely: none), he wasn't all that surprised.

"What're all these corridors really about, anyway?" He shook his head. "I mean, don't get me wrong, love, you're wonderful and all that, but there's being bigger on the inside and then there's being bigger." _And she must have walked for_ hours.

When she'd said she wanted to be alone for a while, he hadn't thought she meant a whole day. At this rate, it seemed to have been a whole day of wandering about aimlessly through never-ending corridors. He wasn't sure he'd ever had the talk with Rose about exactly how never-ending some of these corridors could be, but if he had, he could forgive her forgetting right now.

He'd never lost a companion inside the TARDIS before. He checked his watch.

"Okay, I think it's time to cheat a little."

He reached a turn and reached up above his head, standing on the tips of his toes to grab a seemingly stray cable looping down from the ceiling - except that this was the TARDIS, of course, his TARDIS, so nothing was really stray or random or unknown to him. A tug on the cable brought a floating panel down from the ceiling panel into his hand.

"Now, sweetheart. Just - a little bit - of -" He bit his lip in concentration, "- _tinkering_ -"

The TARDIS made a strange little shudder. The Doctor grinned broadly.

"That's my girl."

He let the panel float back up into the ceiling and nodded, still grinning.

Rose was sitting round the next corner. A long stretch of corridor separated them, decorated in early Georgian style with plush velvet-cushioned panels halfway up the wall and an insane kind of green paisley leaping out of the wallpaper above it. The floor was polished wood and laid with an Oriental rug (probably authentic, if he knew his TARDIS) that made his head spin a bit, and Rose was sitting on it, head back against one horrible burgundy velvet panel, mucky trainers scuffing the rug - _good riddance,_ he thought to that, at least - twirling something he couldn't quite see but knew instantly between her fingers.

"Hello." He raised both eyebrows at her. Wonderfully expressive, this new(ish) body of his. He'd not been able to look this cute and gormless in at least two regenerations. "Fancy meeting you here."

She smiled, but it was a teetering, ache-filled smile without opening her eyes. Still, better than losing his first companion.

"Hi."

He came slowly down the corridor, watching her carefully. For someone who'd been wandering about for almost a day, she looked okay enough to quell the immediate fears that had forced him to abandon the malfunctioning transcopic reductor coil and come looking for her in the first place. Of course, the TARDIS held just about everything anyone could need, so he hadn't been concerned about how she might starve or dehydrate or just be unable to find any clean underwear, but she had just watched her father die.

_Twice._

And saved him.

And altered time. And watched everyone in the world get eaten like bacteria as a consequence. And watched him die, again. Voluntarily.

He thought he'd put a stop on any personal journeys for a while. Make up those Laws of Time, maybe. _Star Trek_ could probably give him some pointers for that - he still got fairly decent Sky reception if they passed through the twentieth century once in a wormhole.  
Anyway, he'd come looking for her, and here she was.

From the look of her face she'd been crying again, but that wasn't unexpected. He sat down as gracefully as he could next to her on the hard floor - that rug really did nothing but sell a good line in nausea, because it certainly wasn't comfortable - looked at the opposite wall and sighed.

"Rose." He reached out without looking and plucked the chunk of hideous eighties mass-market pasty-white ceramic out of her fingers.

"Doesn't matter, does it?" She sounded awful when she was sniffling, he'd noticed that before. Something about Rose made him far too perceptive about things like that. "I mean, one little thing, one little -" she waved her hand at his fingertips, still balancing the ragged and, he thought, rather morbid souvenir - "piece of crap, a thing like that, it doesn't make a difference, right? It's okay? If I took it - I just - I wanted, something, I dunno-"

"It's okay," he told her, closing his fist around it. The sharp edge bit into the heel of his palm. Why did curves always shatter into little triangles?

"Good." She sniffed loudly again. "Well that's okay then." Another sniffle while she hastily rubbed her eye.

"That's not good for you," he added. She shrugged.

"Don't care."

"Well I do." He grabbed a corner of her jacket and fumbled about for the pocket. Taking this himself would be wrong, even just as a keepsake, even for a little while. Rose didn't seem to care about much right now, including the way he manhandled her until he'd shoved the little piece of crap securely into a pocket and zipped it shut.

There was silence for an awkward moment, during which he realised why the reductor coil had been trying to function sideways and what he needed to do to fix it, while Rose sat there with her forearms on her knees, hands uneasily twisting in midair.

He sighed, dug a hand in his pocket and held up something else instead.

"This is yours."

Rose opened her eyes tiredly. "You made me give it back. You called me stupid. You said-"

"I know what I said." He shrugged. "_You_ said you were sorry."

"So did Adam."

"Adam was a pillock."

"True."

"You're not a pillock, Rose."

Was that almost a smile? Almost? "Gee, thanks."

"My pleasure." He smiled. Maybe it'd be catching if he tried hard enough. "In fact, you're not a stupid ape either."

She rolled her head toward him and actually focussed on his face for the first time in - well, it felt like it had been a while. "That would make you Wrong," she said, in a slow, low voice, with particular emphasis on building the capital letter in that particular place.

He gave her a look. "Did I ever say I couldn't be?"

"You might've implied it one or two hundred times, yeah."

"I'm sorry."

Her eyebrows shot up. She pushed her hair messily behind her ear. Did she ever brush it? He really needed to sort out a room for her. And stuff. Girl's stuff.

This is Rose.

Hmm. Probably best to make it a suite.

"What?" He made a concerted effort not to get defensive. "What'd I say? Did I sprout another head? 'Cause that can be catching, you know, deadly if it's the wrong strain-"

Rose smiled and ducked her head down to sniff away another tear or five. "Nah, nothing like that. Still just the one," she reached up to scrub her hand over his hair and tug one ear.

"Hey!" He was sure none of his other companions had ever manhandled him like this. He was also reasonably sure he wouldn't have enjoyed it as much - _well, except maybe if... nah, like that would've happened_ \- so he let it go.

"I am. Sorry." He paused. This was dangerously close to stuff he Didn't Do. "About your dad. Really." She didn't say anything. He frowned a bit. "You going to be okay?"

Rose's sigh was quiet but almost clear of tears. "Yeah..." She smiled weakly and took the key from his hand. "Yeah. Eventually. I'll be good."

"You'd better not; I'd be terribly disappointed."

She almost even laughed at that, and he rooted around for that huge gormless grin again to pull her good humour out into the open. "How's this for an idea - Brighton pier, nineteen-ninety-eight, six thirty seven in the morning on the first day of that year's Pride thingy-whatsit. Best seaside snacking time in existence. Want some fish and chips?"

"Ugh." Rose made a face. "No thanks. Tell you a secret?"

"Anything," he vowed, and meant it. She smiled, working her fingers between his own. Her hand was warm, the key pressed between their palms, and he'd missed it.

"Chips. Don't really like 'em that much. Kinda stodgy unless you get the posh restaurant ones, and all those carbs - god. As if my hips don't have enough trouble already."

He grinned and squeezed her hand tight. Eventually, if you left it long enough, you could lose anything in these corridors. Even pain. Even loss.

If only for a little while.

"Tell you what. How about a cup of tea?"

 

*


End file.
